Ibn Taimiyah was barely seventeen, when Qadi Al-Maqdisi authorized him to issue
Fatwa (legal verdict). Qadi remembered with pride that it was he who had first
permitted an intelligent and learned man like Ibn Taimiyah to give Fatwa. At the
same age, he started delivering lectures. When he was thirty, he was offered the
office of Chief Justice, but refused, as he could not persuade himself to follow
the limitations imposed by the authorities.

Imam Ibn Taimiyah's education was essentially that of a Hanbali theologian and
jurisconsult. But to his knowledge of early and classical Hanbalism, he added
not only that of the other schools of jurisprudence but also that of other
literature.

He had an extensive knowledge of Quran, Sunnah, Greek philosophy, Islamic
history, and religious books of others, as is evident from the variety of the
books he wrote.

And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily
and when the ignorant address them, they say, Peace.
TMQ Qur'an